Twitter Debuts Photo Filters, Just Like Instagram

Picture-sharing service Instagram on Sunday stopped allowing its photos to be embedded in streams of messages on Twitter. It didn’t take long for the latter to add new photo features including “filters” that will seem familiar to Instagram devotees.

In a blog post Monday, Twitter said the latest versions of Twitter apps for iPhone and Android devices will allow new ways to edit photos, including filters to make over smartphone snapshots in black and white, or in movie-style looks. For the new photo filters, Twitter said it leaned on Aviary, a startup that creates photo-editing features for digital services such as Flickr and Box.

The backdrop of the new photo features is the increasing rivalry between Twitter and Instagram, which Twitter had tried to acquire before Facebook bought it this fall.

Late last week, Instagram said it was likely to disable the ability for photos taken using Instagram’s mobile apps to appear inside the Twitter stream of messages. Instead, people surfing tweets now need to click on a link that directs people to see the images on Instagram’s own digital services. That may decrease the time users spend on Twitter, as sharing Instagram images has become a popular activity on Twitter.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom last week said the company recently updated its website, which he said now allows “users to directly engage with Instagram content….We believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives.” A spokeswoman for Instagram declined further comment.

The New York Times was among the news outlets that had reported Twitter was likely to introduce image filters.